adam . # . 1/1

Understood, but just as you say Howard's words should be put in the context of his actions in practice, Scruton's words should be taken in the context of the rest of the book and the figures he explicitly harks back to. Burke, his hero, spent most of his career on and off the backbenches, tied up the Viceroy of India in a corruption investigation for a decade, and opposed the King's policy in America ... he's all about preservation and delay.

Rather we should recognise the wisdom of Lord Salisbury's terse summary of his philosophy and accept that "delay is life". Conservatism is the politics of delay, the purpose of which is to maintain in being, for as long as possible, the life and health of the social organism.

Now delay in the inaction sense is not really need in environmental policy at the moment, what we need is to preserve the life of e.g. the Murray Darling river system.